"Hostas" La Vista!

I'm embarrassed as to how long it's been since my last post. I forget what the first 6-8 weeks of school are like for a teacher. Oy. But the good thing is that I'm almost out of the woods of the busy fall school load, and back to some normalcy.

The past few weekends have been just as busy as the work week, as my husband and I decided to take on the animal that is "landscaping." I shouldn't say "we" took it on, since he's really been doing the nitty gritty ever since we moved in - without a ton of help from me. I'm really more of an interior kind of gal. Plant life tends to die a slow death while in my possession. But my favorite season arrived, and I got an itch to do some outdoor work. Praise!

I didn't forget about the deck...that is still a work in progress. The next big move on the deck was the "stone wall phase" and that is still underway. Keep an eye out for a blog about that phase soon. We're loving the way it's coming out!

The crisp weather was upon us, so the hubs and I decided to attack the small "jungle" on the side of our house. You can view this spot from the street, so the overgrowth was getting a tad embarrassing. Being that the next Swamp Thing movie could have been filmed here, we decided to dive in aggressively.

Here are some views from the street before the work started:

(That's the side of our house.)

There's Swamp Thing, oh, I mean Dennis, in the jungle:

(Now the street is in the background.)

Tools are out. Sweating has begun.

Here are the "before" shots of the area by the staircase that leads down to the backyard.

And after hours/days of blood, sweat and tears...

And since we live on Cherry Lane, how could we not plant a cherry tree!?

Okay, so eight Aleves later, we had to think about how we wanted to design this now-bare space. We knew we definitely wanted to line the perimeter with boxwoods. So we went with Green Velvet Boxwoods.

And an entire truckload of mulch!

And as Dennis put it..."Hostas La Vista!" (Insert landscape humor here.)

Cherry Tree is planted!

Voila!

Believe it or not, we still need a few more truckloads of mulch to fill up the area (as well as curbside). But at least we made a dent.

And I can't forgot about the little bed under the windows against the house. I didn't take any before pics (working on that!), but it was just as overgrown as the larger area across from it. Here it is all cleaned up after new mulch and planting a few small spruce trees.

Ignore the far window! Dennis is in the middle of painting the trim! You may have noticed that two photos above...

We're done with this spot for now, and will pick things back up in the spring. We're still brainstorming what types of foliage to plant here. Den really wants to create the first "topiary solar system." Pray for me!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers!

xo, Claudine